re:Oh come on!

Space/Science » in reply to re: Energy limitations for private spaceflight

re:Oh come on!

Nathan Koren — 7/21/2004 4:52:18 AM (archived)

Earth-bound transportation moves billions of tons per year; an UNBELIEVABLY robust launch industry might, in the far distant future, move one millionth as much mass. You're right, it takes a lot more energy to get stuff to orbit, so I suppose it's possible that spacelaunch might someday represent as much as 1/100,000th of the worl'd energy-for-moving-mass budget. Is this worth worrying about? No.

Furthermore, in on the overall scheme of things, fuel costs are almost insignificant when it comes to spacelaunch. Fuel costs could increase by a factor of 10x, to no effect whatsoever. If fuel costs increased 100x, then that might create a bit of a pinch -- but we'd just switch to using liquid Hydrogen, which many rockets already use (the Space Shuttle, the Ariane 5, et cetera), or other non-hydrocarbon fuels. No problem.

Please, I'm the resident rabid environmentalist on this board, but I do try to keep myself educated. If you're going to post about these kinds of things, either know what you're talking about, or ask *questions* to help yourself figure it out, rather than making ridiculous declarations.

Cheers,

Nathan

The whole thread (35 posts)

StuntShipOne: The GeeBee Of Outer Space by Jeff Bell - Mark Eby - 7/21/2004 3:05:34 AM
- Fisking the article - Larry J - 7/21/2004 3:17:21 PM
  - Educational, thanks Larry (n/t) - McFly - 7/22/2004 1:39:17 PM
  - Great post. You might want to pass it on to SpaceDaily. (n/t) - Tom Brosz - 7/21/2004 10:13:34 PM
  - re: Fisking the fisking - Nathan Koren - 7/21/2004 4:20:35 PM
    - Thanks for the info on SpaceX - Larry J - 7/21/2004 4:55:45 PM
      - re: Thanks for the info on SpaceX - Nathan Koren - 7/21/2004 5:42:37 PM
        
        I did a little checking on the SpaceX website - Larry J - 7/22/2004 6:16:18 PM
        
        All the market will bear... - Tom Brosz - 7/23/2004 3:03:37 AM
        
        re: All the market will bear... - Nathan Koren - 7/23/2004 3:59:21 PM
        
        To be fair... - Tom Brosz - 7/24/2004 4:36:27 AM
        
        re: I did a little checking on the SpaceX website - Nathan Koren - 7/23/2004 1:39:42 AM
        
        But at least it's now within sight. - Lee - 7/21/2004 11:45:20 PM
        
        Absolutely - Nathan Koren - 7/22/2004 2:09:31 AM
- Nit picking - Gary - 7/21/2004 5:29:51 AM
- re: StuntShipOne: The GeeBee Of Outer Space by Jeff Bell - Nathan Koren - 7/21/2004 4:39:59 AM
- re: StuntShipOne - Tom Brosz - 7/21/2004 3:43:04 AM
  - re: Energy limitations for private spaceflight - M - 7/21/2004 4:23:01 AM
    - Codswallop! - Nick Hoffman - 7/21/2004 7:07:03 AM
      - Well put! - dtb - 7/22/2004 1:06:39 AM
      - Well put! - dtb - 7/22/2004 1:06:30 AM
      - re: Energy Limited - N - 7/21/2004 8:52:50 AM
        
        Shuttle Mass - Adam - 7/24/2004 10:28:07 PM
        
        re: Correction - O - 7/21/2004 9:01:30 AM
        
        re: Correction - Nick Hoffman - 7/21/2004 9:52:08 AM
        
        Then you obviously agree that private space industry will be rather limited in scale (n/t) - P - 7/21/2004 10:26:46 AM
        
        Refer to my post below entitled "The Limits of Deductive Reasoning" - Q - 7/21/2004 11:50:49 AM
        
        A future different from what we expected - R - 7/21/2004 12:31:45 PM
        
        Consistent handles, please. - Tom Brosz - 7/21/2004 10:11:30 PM
        
        Don't worry Tom... - Nick Hoffman - 7/22/2004 4:39:50 AM
        
        re: Things change (n/t) - S - 7/21/2004 11:07:47 PM
        
        re: Things become confusing (n/t) - SteveS - 7/23/2004 1:55:18 PM
    - re:Oh come on! - Nathan Koren - 7/21/2004 4:52:18 AM
      - *Yeesh!* What crawled up *my* shorts tonight? - Nathan Koren - 7/21/2004 4:54:38 AM
        
        Hopefully, no valuable documents. ;) (n/t) - Tom Brosz - 7/21/2004 8:17:39 AM

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